> both Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro come to mind as exceptions
What do you mean?
285 karma · joined December 17, 2019
What do you mean?
Literally never happened. The fact that you're parroting this lie shows how deeply media bubbles have disconnected people from reality.
https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/966396848/read-trumps-jan-6-s...
https://www.npr.org/sections/insurrection-at-the-capitol/202...
> the author has started from his prior positions and then constructed an argument that reinforces them
There are two ways to interpret this:
1. You're accusing the author of making an argument that is circular. If so, describe the argument, including its premises and conclusion, and specify which premise is the conclusion.
2. You're merely attacking the author for arguing their position. Hardly objectionable and also a red herring, since the soundness of an argument is independent of the author's "prior positions".
Furthermore, I see nothing controversial about the statement you quoted. It is indisputably true, and would be true for any other author.
I don't know, because you didn't engage with the content of the article at all. You merely casted nasty aspersions on its author.
> I am not attacking the guy personally
Yes, you are.
he seems to specialize in a specious species of polemic and obfuscation designed solely to justify and promulgate his political and religious views. If it lends a sense of purpose to his life, makes him a living or gives him a feeling of self-importance/bolsters his worth among his peers, who am I to criticize? Perhaps it is actually a deep satire with some ulterior motive.
So not only do you throw around unsubstantiated aspersions, but you are also dishonest.
The reality is that we don’t have archaeological records for virtually anyone who lived in Jesus’s time and place.
Who was the most important Jewish figure in Palestine for the entire first century (who wasn’t, say, the actual king)? There’s no doubt. Flavius Josephus. Highly placed aristocrat, military leader, political figure, eventually made a court historian by the Roman emperor himself, and our principal source of information for the Jewish people and history at the time. And how much archaeological evidence do we have of his existence? None.
So too, who is (by far) the best known Jewish cultural figure outside of Palestine in the first century? Again, not much competition: Philo of Alexandria, brilliant philosopher, massively prolific author, political activist, known even at the highest levels of government in Rome itself. How much archaeological evidence do we have of his existence? Again, none. The lack of evidence does not mean a person at the time didn’t exist. It means that she or he, like 99.99% of the rest of the world at the time, made no impact on the archaeological record.
The most detailed record of the life and death of Jesus comes from the four Gospels and other New Testament writings. "These are all Christian and are obviously and understandably biased in what they report, and have to be evaluated very critically indeed to establish any historically reliable information," Ehrman says. "But their central claims about Jesus as a historical figure—a Jew, with followers, executed on orders of the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius—are borne out by later sources with a completely different set of biases."
Within a few decades of his lifetime, Jesus was mentioned by Jewish and Roman historians in passages that corroborate portions of the New Testament that describe the life and death of Jesus.
Regarding the apocryphal texts, they're called apocryphal for a reason, and do not form part of the Biblical canon.
> Or take the church's silly little pro life movement. Do you notice that it's directed against women? Pro lifers never take out billboards that say 'Men, don't have sex with women when they're drunk. That is called rape.'
> And here we are, stoning the gay, stoning the activists and stoning reproductive rights without so much as a thought about it.
> Only a man's calling can be legitimate.
> If God had an organization with a really serious sexual abuse crisis and if God read the HBR, God might decide it makes sense to bring some women into leadership positions.
> They had a direct line to God when they were abusing all those kids or ethnically cleansing Canada of its indigenous population.
You're under a false impression, and are spreading a myth [0][1]. In fact, your claim is exactly backwards: Certain laypeople (you seem to be among them) demand more evidence for the historicity of Jesus than for other famous people of antiquity.
> And that the Bible was mostly written hundreds of years after Jesus supposedly existed.
First, this is complete nonsense, given that ~77% of the Bible is the Old Testament, whose books have been dated to centuries BCE [1].
Second, if we charitably reinterpret your comment as referring to the New Testament, it is also false. The Book of Revelation is generally accepted by traditional scholarship to have been written during the reign of Domitian (81–96 CE) [1]. A handful (3-4) of other books are dated to 110 CE at most.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth_theory
genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group
From [0]:
Witnesses testified that his brief government of Hispaniola was marked by routine cruelty not only to the native Taínos but also to Spaniards who defied or mocked him.
Columbus wanted living and multiplying subjects to tax and govern. He was not interested in depopulating newly acquired territories.
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-chr...
...is not as important as the result.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences
> A free market solution chooses to not serve poor people, so it can be cheaper for richer people.
Your claim is contradicted by the real-world data in almost any industry.
And yes in practice. Cuba trades with China, Spain, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands.
Source?
> The reason why all of these coubtries are in Canada or the EU is
But they're not all in Canada or the EU. Brazil, Mexico, China, and Russia are also among its top trade partners.
> those are the two jurisdiction where the government has laws to compel you to trade with Cuba
?
No, they don't. Canada, Spain, Netherlands, Germany, and Italy are among Cuba's top trade partners.
Cuban officials say the cargo carrier of Colombia-based Avianca Airlines declined to carry the aid to Cuba because its major shareholder is a U.S.-based company subject to the trade embargo on Cuba.
That's a lie. Cuba trades with China, Spain, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and the Netherlands.
Source? To prevent goalpost-moving, the restrictions we're referring to are:
The government will protect "human capital" in its decision-making, and travel can be denied for "national security reasons." Those deemed necessary to the Cuba socialist revolution — professionals such as doctors, scientists and engineers — can be prevented from departing.
Do you have a source for that? This [0] suggests otherwise.
That's an understatement.
> controls on who can obtain passports are sadly the norm in the entire world
These restrictions are far from "the norm in the entire world".
[0] https://www.britannica.com/event/New-Economic-Policy-Soviet-...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivization_in_the_Soviet...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%93...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakh_famine_of_1931%E2%80%93...
Why should anyone support a Communist regime that over a million Cubans have risked (and sometimes lost) their lives trying to escape?
That's a lie. Cuba trades with China, Spain, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and the Netherlands.